The helping hand
by marinheiro
Summary: Okay, another Timon and Pumbaa story just 'cause I love them! Timon sees nightmares, and Pumbaa is there for him. Later it's Timon's turn to help his friend, when something rather alarming happens...


The raindrops caressed gently the leaves of many trees of the jungle. They were only sounds you could heard, along with some tropical birds singing. Deep in the moist jungle were however two animals sleeping together, a meerkat and a warthog, smaller one curled on the bigger one's tummy. All that silence was soon broken by the meerkat, who shouted his friend's name in his sleep. In alarm, the other one woke up. "Timon, buddy, what is it?"

The little meerkat opened quickly his eyes. "Pumbaa... So I guess I said something in my sleep?"

"Yes, my name. Was it a bad dream?"

"About you? If it was, it'd probably be about your smell." Timon started, but when his friend gave him a little injured look, he continued: "Sorry, pal. Actually, it was a bad dream."

Pumbaa stroked gently Timon's back. "What was it about?"

"Oh, you know, the same old 'bully the loser meerkat'" Timon told but showed no signs emotionalism.

Still stroking his little friend, Pumbaa assured quietly: "Aww... you're not a loser. Whoever thinks that is wrong... What was I doing in your dream?"

Timon sat up, yawned and climbed onto Pumbaa's nose. With a grin he said: "I probably just needed your help."

Pumbaa smiled widely at this. "I'll always help my bestest best friend!"

"Great! Help me find some midnight snack then, will ya?"

"Ooh, I like the sound of that!"

The happy-go-lucky duo wandered in their oasis, trying to catch the juiciest worms of the rainy night. Always when it rained they would come out to crawl. Timon was lurking behind a little but yummy-looking earthworm when he heard Pumbaa's voice calling: "Timon, come here! Look at the size of this worm!". Timon did as asked as walked to see this apparently 'immense' worm. It was one insanely big light green worm indeed what crawled on the wet ground, he had to admit it. But when he got close enough, he realized something about that certain "worm".

"Pumbaa, that ain't no worm, that's a... SNAKE!" he screamed and jumped quickly to his friend's back, "Run, piggy boy, run!"

With a loud 'aaaaarghh' Pumbaa started to run away. They were lucky that it was snake, and not some fast animal like cheetah. Pumbaa was obviously much faster than that snake, being actually incredibly fast when it came to running away in fear. "Don't worry, buddy, we'll get away", Timon said with a soothing voice, but suddenly noticed that the snake was following them with full-speed.

"Woah! That's one heck of a snake!" he exclaimed.

Pumbaa speeded up, hoping the snake would eventually peg out. Suddenly he felt a little tiny pinch in his back foot. He didn't have time to think about it at the moment, and since it didn't even bother him he just continued what he was doing, meaning escaping.

Finally the snake was left behind and Timon and Pumbaa got to take a few deep relieved sighs. "Phew! I'm glad that's gone, it was like twice my size long!"

"Yes, we made quite a great escape there didn't we, Timon?"

Timon chuckled at this like it was the most obvious thing ever. "Well of course, Pumbaa! Thanks to my quick thinking... and your quick running!"

Then they started to look for those worms they fancied so badly. After a while the warthog started to feel kind of tired and languid. It had to be the fact that it was night and he didn't get much sleep due to nightmare Timon saw, whom he of course wanted to comfort then. "Gee, Timon, I'm kinda tired. I think I'll go back to sleep already... If you don't mind?"

Timon turned to him and shrugged his shoulders: "Oh, okay. Go ahead, I'll be right after you, Pumbaa.". Then he saw the _perfect grub_ and went after it, while Pumbaa went towards their sleeping spot. He didn't feel very good. _'Maybe I just need some sleep...'_ he thought as he tottered on the jungle path.

Something in Timon's stomach didn't want him to hunt bugs anymore. That something told him to go after Pumbaa. "Oy..." he muttered as the strong urge won and he put the bug hunting aside. He yawned and stretched his arms -he clearly needed some sleep as well, all those nightmares had kept him awake lately. When Timon got closer to their sleeping place, he froze on the spot. On the wet, chilly ground there was Pumbaa, lying eyes closed and breathing loudly. Timon hurried to his friend, completely frantic. He grabbed his hoof with both of his hands and cried out with worried voice: "Pumbaa, what happened!? Talk to me, buddy?" His friend looked so weak that tears came to his eyes. Timon touched Pumbaa's face and shocked. "You have fever!"

Slowly Pumbaa opened his eyes. They were so tired. Then he let out a deep, shaky breath. "I... I don't k-know", he slurred.

Timon stared at his friend's eyes with concerned expression. "Well, whatever is going on, it's not obviously just fatigue and it's making you feel bad!"

Pumbaa nodded. It surely wasn't, something _was_ wrong. Timon knew what to do: Pumbaa had been there for him when he had seen nightmares, now it was his turn to help. He started to check his friend's body, in case he'd found some sings of a possible disease. Then he noticed it: in Pumbaa's left back leg was a swollen wound. First he had no idea what it could be but then he remembered that fast snake. "Pumbaa...", he started with shaking voice, "Don't tell me that that snake bit you."

Now Pumbaa realized what the little pinch he felt earlier was. "Oh no...", he whispered, frightened look in his eyes. Timon noticed that Pumbaa was about to cry and were quickly right beside him to give comfort. He caressed the warthog's face with other hand while the other one held tightly his front hoof. "Timon... am I going to..." Pumbaa started, but wasn't able to continue. The tears came.

"Shhh... shh, my dear Pumbaa. Everything will be okay, I'm right here." the small meerkat assured and buried himself closer to his best friend, "I'll protect you."

Pumbaa's breath became steadier as he listened Timon's gentle voice. It was so full of love and caring, that Pumbaa's tears of fear eventually changed to tears of happiness. "I'm lucky to have a friend like you." he whispered, half because he didn't get enough voice to speak louder, half because he was so touched of Timon's words. Timon smiled at this and closed his eyes, snuggling under Pumbaa's front leg.

"Same here", he whispered back. They stayed like that a while, Timon patting Pumbaa's hoof at times as encouraging him to fight against the poison. The rain stopped eventually, leaving them all wet but still warm due to their closeness to each other. The clouds in the sky moved out of the way revealing a bright starry sky. Pumbaa was asleep, breathing a lot better than earlier. His fever wasn't still gone, Timon noticed this when he softly reached to touch the warthog's forehead. Again his quick thinking made him remember the book they once bought from holiday in Malagasy. He pulled it out of his back. The title said it all: _Snakes that have bitten us that made us not look so good._

Timon started to browse the pages and finally spotted it. "Aha! So it's this devil who bit my Pumbaa!"

Gently he started to wake his friend up, knowing that he would want to know this information. The warthog winced and mumbled half asleep: "Wasn't me.". Timon sighed, that sounded like Pumbaa was feeling much better!

"I just found out what bit you!"

Pumbaa's heart skipped a beat when he heard those words. He was now full awake, and waited for the worst. Timon noticed this and began to explain: "It's not deadly! It's called _the green leaf wormsnake_. Oh! See, no wonder you thought it was a worm!" Timon laughed a bit as he read the name.

Pumbaa sighed with relief and let Timon continue: "This book says that_ 'The green leaf wormsnake is a ridiculously fast snake that hides among the leaves and likes to grovel when it's raining -like earthworms. Its poison causes the victim tiredness, weakness and a high fever, but it's just temporary and not deadly. Usually noticeable side effect that comes couple hours later from the bite is malodorous flatulence'._ There we have it. Wait a minute! Malodorous flatulence!?" He looked up to Pumbaa with the 'oh my god'-look.

"Oh boy", Pumbaa said quickly, "But hey, I have it already so it can't be that bad... can it?"

Timon couldn't help himself. He laughed good-naturedly and threw the book away. "Eh... Well, we'll never know. I mean, we'll know it in about... forty minutes."

"Gee, I try to do _it _upwind."

"Haha, thanks Pumbaa! But hey, ya know, I'm your friend -I can stand downwind as well. The main thing is that you're going to be all right!" Timon said and cheerfully hugged his pal.

Pumbaa grinned. "You know what Timon? That kinda got me on the mood to sing _Hakuna Matata!_"

"Oh, you're ready to sing! Seems like my Pumbaa is all better now!"


End file.
